OTC Markets Group Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OTC Markets Group first quarter 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Zinn, General Counsel and Chief of Staff.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and welcome to the OTC Markets Group first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. With me today are Pramil Kulson, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Antonia Georgieva, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will be accompanied by a slide presentation. Our earnings press release and the presentation are each available on our website. Certain statements during this call and in our presentation may relate to future events or expectations and, as such, may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information concerning risks and uncertainties that may impact our actual results is contained in the Risk Factors section of our 2024 Annual Report, which is also available on our website. For more information, please refer to the Safe Harbor Statement on slide 3 of the earnings presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Cromwell Coulson.

Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will discuss our first quarter 2025 results at a high level and will review the status of our key priorities for the year. Gross and net revenues each increased by 10% during the first quarter. Our strong overall results were from a 22% growth in OTC Link revenues and a 15% increase in market data licensing. Corporate services saw a 1% decrease during the quarter. I want to thank all our colleagues at OTC Markets Group for their contributions. Our business is a team sport and we will win with capable and caring people in every position. These results highlight the value of our business model with each business line supporting the others. Antonia will review our financial results in greater detail in a few minutes. OTC Link's strong first quarter revenue was largely due to growing trading volumes across each of our markets, extending the trend from the second half of 2024. We cannot control overall market volume, so we focus on providing reliable, cost-effective solutions to our subscribers that provide the best possible service, whether volumes are up or down. Price increases in our market data business were a primary driver for the first quarter revenue results. The team has done a great job of communicating the growing value quotient with our subscribers, leading to outstanding user retention. The slight decrease in corporate services revenues during the first quarter is largely a result of OTCQX and OTCQB sales and retention results experienced during 2024, which brought down the total number of companies. Through the first portion of this year, corporate services sales have begun to trend upward. During our last earnings call, I described our two key initiatives for 2025, overnight trading and the launch of the OTC ID basic market. These projects remain our top priorities across the organization. Overnight trading includes our moon ATS for trading exchange listed NMS securities and OTC Overnight to support trading in OTC securities. Each market operates from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. Eastern Time, Sunday through Thursday. The combination of OTC Overnight and Moon ATS enables our broker-dealer subscribers to access thousands of exchange-listed and OTC securities during the Asian market hours at European market open and overnight in the US. Moon ATS is an early entrant into what we expect will be a competitive market. We have rapidly responded to broker dealer demand to launch regulated overnight trading platforms. Moon ATS has onboard a number of active broker dealer subscribers and offers trading in over 10,000 securities. As we have lit up moon trading, we have seen increased interest in moon market data from across the globe, with a number of firms already subscribing to our data feeds. As with our existing daytime markets, transparency is paramount. The availability of moon market data to interested market participants around the world is key to the success of this endeavor. OTC Overnight has also begun onboarding subscribers. OTC Overnight offers unique value, blending our expertise in facilitating OTC equity trading with the desire for investors across time zones to access regulated U.S. trading markets during their daytime hours. Our view towards the overnight market matches our approach to the markets we have operated for many years. We will deliver elegant, reliable, and cost-effective solutions that help meet the needs of our subscribers and benefit investors. Our second high priority initiative, OTCID, has also seen substantial progress. On July 1st, we will retire the pink current market and launch the OTC ID basic market. OTC ID is for companies to publish a baseline of ongoing information rather than meet the qualitative and quantitative standards for our premium markets. These companies provide ongoing financial disclosure, publish a management certification, and verify their company profile and other important data for U.S. investors and brokers. OTC ID Basic continues our more detailed distinction and contrast we are creating between our markets. Our OTCQX and OTCQB premium markets are recognized brands. ingrained in trading, regulatory, and compliance processes across the industry. OTCID will expand our offering to a wider range of companies. These companies separate their brands from securities quoted on Pink Limited, which have little to no issuer involvement. Pink Limited companies do not certify their compliance with established reporting standards, have limited availability of disclosure or financial information readily available to U.S. investors, and may not support their U.S. market. These securities will continue to be identified with a yield sign next to their stock symbol to warn investors to proceed with caution. It is important to understand that issuers now in the PINC current market that do not provide the required information will see their securities transition to the PINC limited market or for those with late or incomplete disclosure to the expert restricted market. We are encouraging companies to submit their OTC ID applications on a timely basis to ensure that our compliance team has ample time to review each application before launch. We have received numerous applications thus far. During our next earnings call, I expect to be able to report on the number of companies that achieved OTC ID compliance by the July 1st deadline. Companies that do not meet the deadline, but later choose to apply, may do so at any time and we will continue to report on the number of companies participating in OTC ID over time. Our OTCQX, OTCQB, and OTC ID markets provide a digital platform for public companies to perform the same IR, disclosure, and governance activities as listed companies. This helps ensure the informational, operational, and compliance experience for brokers and investors is comparable to exchange listed securities. Our data driven markets allow engaged companies to improve the market pricing process, earn credibility over time, And for those of a comparable financial strength, enjoy similar privileges and valuations to comparable listed companies. Prioritizing critical projects such as overnight trading and OTCID helps align our teams and organize our resources. However, these initiatives